Company Strengths

Miro Forestry is a West African centered plantation forestry business with over 30,000 hectares of land which is being planted with high-yielding timber crops. The Company has established nurseries and a high quality management team who have a proven track record of developing and operating timber plantation businesses.

Strong Management Team and Organization

The Company has and is continuing to build a strong organization of international and local managers with a proven record of success in growing emerging market companies and of managing plantation forestry businesses in Africa and elsewhere.

Miro Forestry has recruited world class forestry expertise and aims to continue operating its plantations to highest international sustainable forestry standards and to further educate host regions in modern and world class forestry practices. Where possible Miro Forestry recruits its management team locally providing all employees with exposure to best practice business standards and training.

Ideal Location for Plantation Forestry

The tropics, in Africa, Asia and Central America are compelling locations in which to establish new forest plantations. In particular West Africa is an ideal region as rainfall and temperatures are good, there is land of high quality, operating costs are globally highly competitive and qualified employees are available.

West Africa has severely dwindling timber stocks and booming demand for timber as domestic economies and construction grow rapidly. West Africa is also close to the major timber markets of Europe and North America.

Low-Cost Planting

Miro Forestry is efficiently structured with a lean management team and low overhead cost base.
In addition, West Africa is a highly cost competitive region for sustainable forestry with comparative operating costs less than a quarter the costs in Australia and similar regions. This means that Miro Forestry is able to produce commodity timber products off a globally highly competitive operating cost base.

Large Available Land Areas

The Company currently has over 30,000 hectares of plantation forestry land in Ghana and Sierra Leone, West Africa, secured on long-term lease agreements and is currently in the latter stages of securing further land adjoining the company’s current plantations to bring each plantation to about 20,000 hectares. The Company’s team is also in the process of securing land in other countries in the region and has a good track record of land acquisition, typically holding land on 99-year or 50+50-year leases.

Environmental and Social Responsibility

Miro Forestry aims to conform to high environmental, ethical, financial and social standards, and achieve international forestry certification on all plantations. It aims to be the preferred partner for local communities, the national government and international development and finance.

Strong Macro Industry Trends

Most experts agree that demand for timber will continue to rise with increased global demand for wood products, particularly from the expanding and increasingly affluent emerging markets. Against this increasing demand the planet is losing vast areas of timber land every year. To curtail this continued deforestation and illegal logging, which is increasingly viewed as unacceptable, demand for sustainable timber grown in plantations will continue. Today there is simply not enough area of forest plantations to meet this ever increasing demand.

Rapidly Growing Revenue

The oldest areas of Miro Forestry’s plantations, planted by the company, are now reaching maturity
for final clearfell harvest. In addition, the company operates mature plantations, managing these sustainably, replanting after harvest. From these plantations Miro is producing sawn timber, poles and wood biomass products, in the company’s own processing factories. Over the next five years the volume of timber annually reaching maturity on the company’s plantations will increase, thus allowing for increased solid wood product production. As a result the company’s revenues will continue to grow in parallel to such wood-flows.

Fast Growing Local Economies

Ghana, in which the Company’s Boumfoum Forestry plantation is located, is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies and one of the most stable countries in Africa over the past ten years. With the Jubilee Oil Field now on stream GDP, inward investment and the profile of Ghana as an attractive place to do business is set to continue increasing. Likewise, Sierra Leone in which the Company’s Yoni Forestry plantation is located is seeing significant and increasing volumes of international investment, increasingly transparent governance systems and pro-business government policies which are all contributing to sustained GDP growth and investment profile.

Strong Partners

After many years of Miro Forestry and certain Directors operating in West Africa, the Company has a strong network in the region. In addition, the company has an extremely good brand and reputation in the region and beyond, and therefore a wide array of formal and informal support from local stakeholders to Government.